Psalm 18 God shapes by disaster

It took over 15,000 men to build the ship. The ship Titanic was 882½ feet (269m) long, 92½ feet (28m) wide, weighed over 53,000tons (53,800t) and had 11 decks. The Titanic cost $7.5 million to build, well over $123 million today. The Titanic’s top speed was 24 knots (which she never reached) which is equivalent to 28 miles per hour (45kph). She was considered unsinkable. The Titanic was originally to have 64 lifeboats on board but they were reduced to 20.

Titanic set sail carrying some 2,200 people -- millionaires, immigrants, 13 honeymoon couples and an eight-man band that played to the bitter end -- and lifeboats for just over half of them. In the end 712 were rescued; the rest drowned or froze in the water. "It was the biggest ship in history, filled with celebrities of that time,"

Anna Turja memoirs She was 18 years old when she boarded the Titanic in Southampton, England, as a steerage (third class) passenger on her way to America. To her the ship was a floating city. The main deck, with all its shops and attractions, was indeed bigger than the main street in her home town. The atmosphere in third class was quite lively: a lot of talking, singing, and fellowship. She had two roommates on board who were also young Finnish women. One was married, traveling with two small children; the other traveling with her brother. But in steerage, the men were kept in the front part of the ship, the women in the rear. Late that Sunday night, she felt a shudder and a shake. Shortly thereafter, her roommate’s brother knocked on the door and told them that “something was wrong,” that they should wear warm clothing and put on their life jackets. Their little group started heading for the upper decks. A crew member tried to keep them down – ordered them back – but they refused to obey, and he didn’t argue with them. She clearly remembers, however, that the doors were closed and chained shut behind them to prevent others from coming up. The others of the group continued up to a higher deck, “where it will be safer,” they said, but out of pure curiosity and chance she remained on what turned out to be the boat deck. She thought it was too cold to go up further, and she was intrigued by the activity and by the music being played by the band.

she didn’t fully understand what was going on because she did not know the language. Eventually a sailor physically threw her into a lifeboat. In the Lifeboat Her lifeboat was fully loaded when it was launched; it was not one of the ones that got caught up in the cables. They immediately rowed away from the ship, fearing that they would get sucked down with it when it went under. The sailors were so well trained, she was sure that they would have capsized had it not been for the expertise of the oarsmen. She heard loud explosions as the lights went out. Her lifeboat was so full that as she held her hand on the edge of the boat her fingers got wet up to the knuckles. For the first five or ten minutes in the water they had to beat people off who were trying to get into the boat. They were in the lifeboats for eight hours. Though the night was a “brilliant, bright night,” they had to burn any scraps of paper they could find -- money or anything else that wouldn’t cause a flash fire -- so that the boats could see each other and stay together. Her most haunting memory was that of the screams and cries of dying people in the water. Every time she would get to this part of the story she would start crying. “They were in the water, and we couldn’t help them.” The people were wonderful. They gave up their blankets and coats, anything that could help. She kept looking for her roommates, but she never saw either of them again.

Titanic stories

As the Titanic slipped beneath the North Atlantic, London-born Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, a dress designer with chic shops in London and New York City, turned to her secretary aboard lifeboat No. 1 and said, "There is your beautiful nightdress gone." Lucy's ill-timed comment, uttered over the screams of 1,500 victims stranded in the water,

J. BRUCE ISMAY, who sketched the first plans for Titanic on a dinner-party napkin, told Captain Smith to rev up the engines to arrive in New York early for publicity's sake --. The chairman of the steam line, then 49, escaped in one of the last lifeboats, leaving behind a shipload of passengers, his butler, his secretary and his reputation. "There were no more passengers on the deck," he insisted later.

"Unsinkable" -- Molly Brown. Loaded into lifeboat No. 6 (capacity:65) with 24 women and two men, Brown, in a black-velvet, two-piece suit, argued fiercely with Quartermaster Robert Hichens, who refused to return to the wreck site for fear survivors in the water would swamp the boat. To fight the bitter cold, Brown taught the other women to row and shared her sable coat. And when Hichens dismissed a flare fired by an approaching ship as a "shooting star," Brown threatened to throw him overboard (although not, as in the 1964 movie musical bearing her name, while waving a pistol). Once in command, she ordered the women to row to safety.

Ida Straus refused at least two opportunities to escape the sinking Titanic, choosing instead to die with her husband of 41 years, Isidor, a well-known philanthropist who owned Macy's department store. News that the couple had shared their fate came as no surprise to their six children and many friends. "When they were apart, they wrote to each other every day," says Joan Adler, director of the Straus Historical Society. "She called him `my darling papa.' He called her `my darling momma.' " For years they had even celebrated their different birthdays on the same day.

As the Titanic went down, Ida, 63, resisted the pleas of officers to climb into a lifeboat, insisting instead that her maid take her place and handing the young woman her fur coat. ("I won't need this anymore," she said). She was finally cajoled into boarding the second-to-last lifeboat, only to clamber out again as Isidor, 67, stepped away. Last seen clasped in an embrace, Ida and Isidor are memorialized in a Bronx cemetery with a monument inscribed, "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it."

A shipload of people – suddenly their lives were interrupted. Both those who died and those who lived were shaped in those moments. Existing character was revealed. For those who lived, their lives would forever be changed in one manner or another.

The Lord is at work in each person’s life molding them for ministry. Everything that occurs in life is used by the Lord to transform a person into the image of Christ and to equip a person for ministry to others. This sovereign working of God is part of how he is ‘graced’ for ministry.

The gigantic/titanic changes most often occur in the midst of great disaster.Disappointments, disasters, and defeats are significant moments that the Lord uses to transform and equip. As an example, God used even David’s disappointments, struggles, sins and defeats to make him into one who had one of most profound ministries of any OT character. Shaped by the disaster of his life, He led the nation of Israel as her greatest king. He continues to minister to us as the author of most of the Psalms. The lessons he learned continue to teach us today. Many of those lessons were learned in the midst of pain and disappointment.

Some of those disasters were of his own making (consequences of sin). Some disasters of which he was innocent. But God used both types of disaster to shape David, grow his trust in the Lord, and impact countless lives.

He does this in our lives as well.

I. Shaped in disastrous circumstances

A. Undeservedtrouble Psalm 18 Title

(ESV) Psalms 18 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:

1. Unfair situation

2. Did what was right

3. Received intense trouble in return – pursued / attempts to kill / forced to flee into isolation / and lived there

B. Unimaginable pain Psalm 18:4-6a

(ESV) Psalms 18 4 The cords of death encompassedme; the torrents of destruction assailed me; 5 the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confrontedme. 6 In my distress …

C. Forced to trust in His personal God Psalm 18:1-3, 6

(ESV) Psalms 18 1 I love you, O Lord, my strength. 2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. … 6 … I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help.

D. Experienced the incomparable God Psalm 18:6b, 18-20

1. He worked //// For me!!

(ESV) Psalms 18 6 … From his temple he heard my voice, and my cryto him reached his ears.

(ESV) Psalms 18 18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. 19 He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me. 20 The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.

E. Made Him known to others Psalm 18:46a, 49-50

(ESV) Psalms 18 46 The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation …49 For this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing to your name. 50 Great salvation he bringsto his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.

F. Fresh expectation for the future Psalm 18:27-31

(ESV) Psalms 18 27 For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down. 28 For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. 29 For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.

30 This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lordproves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him. 31 For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?—

II. Shaped in personal failure

A. Learned sin devastates Psalm 51 Title, Psalm 38:2-10

1. Great sin psalms – from this major cause

(ESV) Psalms 51 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet wentto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

(ESV) Psalms 38 2 For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me. 3 There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin. 4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. 5 My wounds stink and festerbecause of my foolishness, 6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning.

(ESV) Psalms 38 7 For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. 8 I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart. 9 O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you. 10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.

B. Learned sin is against God Psalm 51:3-4a

(ESV) Psalms 51 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, …

C. Learned sin can be forgiven Psalm 51:1-2, 7a, 9

(ESV) Psalms 51 1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. … 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

D. Learned God restores Psalm 51:8a, 10-12

(ESV) Psalms 51 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. … 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spiritfrom me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

E. Learned God desires the heart Psalm 51:6, 16-17

(ESV) Psalms 51 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

(ESV) Psalms 51 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a brokenand contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

F. Learned restored lives can help others Psalm 51:13-15

(ESV) Psalms 51 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.